Better Shape Up

There’s a lot going on during development as cells multiply and specialise to build a whole organism containing many different tissues. Although researchers have studied development for thousands of years since the Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle first observed how chicks grow inside eggs, we still know little about how all the cells of a developing embryo affect each other as they grow and jostle for space. These images are 3-D computer reconstructions of a developing fruit fly ovary (egg chamber), created from observations of real ovaries, with different types of cells highlighted in different colours. Using a technique known as atomic force microscopy, which carefully ‘pokes’ individual cells to measure the pressure inside them, researchers have discovered how neighbouring cells push against each other to help shape the final structure. Similar forces are likely to be at work in all living tissues and organs as they grow and organise.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image adapted from work by Laurie-Anne Lamiré and Pascale Milani, and colleagues
• Université de Lyon, ENS de Lyon, UCB Lyon 1, CNRS, Lyon, France
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Biology, November 2020